


In the Cave

by pinkgeranium



Series: Sandor in the Riverlands [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 12:36:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3650565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkgeranium/pseuds/pinkgeranium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His wrists are bound with rope, he can feel the scratchiness of more rope at his neck and there is a sack over his head.  He cares more than he expected to, and can’t help wondering why they didn’t finish him on the spot but they seem to be taking him somewhere, or to someone – mayhaps his brother, or to the King in the North who is also in the Riverlands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Cave

**Author's Note:**

> This work owes even more of a debt than usual to GRRM than all my others as I have quoted extensively from Arya's viewpoint chapter where Sandor's trial by combat with the Brotherhood occurs.
> 
> Direct quotes from GRRM's work are clearly indicated in the text (in bold and with an *)- as always all credit to him. 
> 
> I love these characters so much I can't leave them alone.

He should have been on his guard, should have drunk less.  Now his wrists are bound with rope, he can feel the scratchiness of more rope at his neck and there is a sack over his head.  He cares more than he expected to, and can’t help wondering why they didn’t finish him on the spot but they seem to be taking him somewhere, or to someone – mayhaps his brother, or to the King in the North who is also in the Riverlands. 

He allows himself to be taken.

When they take off his hood he is in a cave, face to face with a ragtag group of outlaws.  He recognises the man who removes his hood but cannot place him at first.  Thoros of Myr?  That’s his first shock.  Then the ruin of a man who was once Lord Beric Dondarrion.  He can’t believe he is face to face with the sorry remains of the force Ned Stark sent out to bring his brother to heel, and that they have not yet given up.  There is no beating Gregor, Sandor knows this too well, the only way to beat Gregor has always been to join him.  You have to lose yourself and become what he is, you have to make him fear you a little, and if you are very careful you may hold on to one small point of difference … something to remind you of who you used to be.

Abruptly he loses his patience with them.  They have taken everything he has left – why not take his life and be done with it?  He has already lost everything of value.

But he cannot stay silent when they accuse him of raping children, or killing babies, or of his brother’s crimes. He won’t have them murder him and call it justice, he won’t have them lay all these deaths at his door.  He has enough kills of his own, enough crimes to answer for, he won’t answer for these as well.

When the little boy runs forward and starts screaming at him about Mycah he has no idea who he is talking about.  Then the boy declares himself a girl and tells her story. 

He doesn't recognise her.  There is nothing of her sister in her face.  Her sister is a tall girl but this one is short for her age.  She is dirty and dressed as a boy – _even if Sansa was dirty and dressed as a boy_ , he thinks, _I would always know her_.  **“The little sister,”*** his words so often give him away but no one pays enough attention to him to notice. He laughs, maybe he can see a way forward after all.  **“Don’t you know you’re dead?”***

 **“No, _you’re_ dead.”***  

So, she hates him as much as ever but she is looking right at him. She is a survivor he thinks – if the girls are so different on the outside maybe on the inside they are not so different.  They are both wolves after all.

When they sentence him to trial by combat he thinks he is dreaming, have they forgotten who he is?  His brother, Jamie Lannister and old Ser Barristan Selmy are the only men in the seven kingdoms who might have a chance at beating him with a sword but none of them are here, unless they are hiding Ser Barriston - who must surely be somewhere, though no one knows where.

Seven Hells, the flaming sword is a complication, but he has decided it would be best not to die just yet and he knows he can beat Dondarrion if he doesn’t allow this weakness to get the better of him.  He gives it his all.  When he sees his shield afire he knows he is in danger, he can’t free himself fast enough and his sleeve catches alight.  He can hear the crowd shouting his guilt, demanding Lord Beric finish him.  He can pick out the girl’s voice above all the rest. 

He turns his attention from his burning arm to Lord Beric.  He has been burnt before, better burnt than dead.  He finishes it.  Cleaving Lord Beric from shoulder to breastbone.  Then he puts out the fire and collapses begging for help.  The burn is bad.  The pain and the smell take him back to the little boy he once was.  A man and a woman are trying to help him up when he looks up and sees her, she is holding a dagger and means to kill him.  He knows that look.  He saw it in her sister’s eyes when she was about to push Joffrey to his death.  She of all these people has the right to kill him – he thinks of all those dead Northmen - in the throne room and in the tower of the hand - of Lord Eddard on the steps, of how he watched them hurt her sister and of that stupid butcher’s boy **.**

 **“You want me dead that bad? Then do it, wolf girl. Shove it in. It’s cleaner than fire.”*** He tries to stand – he wants to die on his feet, looking into those eyes – they are not blue but they are looking right at him.  Then a hunk of flesh falls from his arm, his stomach lurches and his legs refuse to support him.  The man catches him before he can fall completely.

When he looks into her eyes again – they have changed, she is looking at him with something almost like pity, but then he sees them harden.

**“You killed Mycah.  Tell them. You did. You** **** **_did_ ** **.”***

He clenches his teeth against the pain and he does what he always did when he thought her sister might have started to soften towards him.  He reminds her who he is.

**“I did. I rode him down and cut him in half, and laughed. I watched them beat your sister bloody too, watched them cut your father’s head off.”***

The fool in the yellow cloak rips the dagger from her hand.  Sandor thinks he might have lost consciousness then because Lord Beric is standing in front of him telling the girl that Sandor is in hell and he does not open his mouth to argue.

 


End file.
